Animal Architecture is a discourse of contemporary architecture
stemmed from biomimetic and sustainable beliefs often seen as a
subset rather than being considered an integral architectural
practice. Animal Architecture not only utilizes ecology as a design
intention, but also as a cultural and social intention, which allows it
to bridge a multiplicity of fields other than architecture. In short
animal arch harnesses the abilities of nature, but most importantly,
it utilizes the ideas of adaptation and symbiosis, and integrates
ecologies to form complex systems for both humans and other
animal species to develop. Through multiple case studies
interspersed throughout this article I wish to educate you on
where, why, and how animal architecture has developed and
what future implications it can have on our built landscapes.
It is important to state that the bugs, birds, fish, and mammals in
animal arch are the tertiary or subsidiary life forms and humans
should gain the most from the field. Animal architecture in my
opinion should not be seen as solely an animal conservation
effort, but rather an exploitation of these creatures for our own
gain. As a whole animal arch relies on functionality and optimization to maximize yields with as little energy as possible ‘similarly’ to
modernist strategies where organicism stems, i.e. Frank Lloyd
Wright and Louis Sullivan. I emphasize ‘similarly’ because the
original organicist paradigms were based on functionality, controlling ornament, creating democratic and integrated spatial arrangements, where animal architecture pushes further. A project that
come to mind is found on animalarchitecture.org and I believe
deals closely with the organicist works of Wright’s ornament but
can be implemented to function further than reiterating the
projects original idea.
The first project I wish to review is called “Bird-Friendly Masonry”
and as you can see in images 1-3 the brick façade has a cylindrical brick addition for sparrows to nest inside of. The designer
Aaron Dunkerton from London sees the harmful effects of our built
environment on the important natural environment of living
species, which in turn negatively impact our lives. Dunkerton
demonstrates that the decline of sparrow population has an
inverse relation with bugs and insects whose populations have
increased. Dunkerton’s small façade interventions which act as
what I call productive ornament create homes for our feathered
friends and exploit their stomachs to level out the insect populations. Modernist organicists only scratched the surface of functionality and efficiency, they understood that accepting the
landscape was important but they forgot to accept the animals as
well. Animal architecture today cooperates and supersedes
modernist functionalism, and that’s because it uses adaptation
and symbiosis. This allows us to begin to understand why animal
architecture has evolved out of our past failures, most notably
modern industrialization, and urban/suburban sprawl.

IMAGE 1: blurring the lines between built and natural urban environments

Labeling Industrialization as a failure to some may seem radical,
because it has catapulted us into the 21st century, but looking in
hindsight it has produced massive excess, increased our population exponentially, and disregarded surrounding ecologies. The
manufactures and architects from the past never thought about
the larger ecological and economic threat they could possibly
pose. An interesting case study to exemplify industrializations
absolute disregard of surrounding ecology and economy is the
Onondaga Lake Superfund site in Syracuse NY from 1900 to
present, image. Onondaga Lake was a large tourist destination
but due to the Honeywell industrial plant’s direct runoff line into the
lake it was deemed un-swimmable in 1940 and unfishable in
1972. This ecological disaster ultimately destroyed the surrounding cities economies by eliminating Syracuse and Liverpool as
tourist destinations, destroyed an entire ecosystem, and polluted
the water table of the greater Onondaga area. Images 4-6 show
the project I worked on with Maxwell Rosner using Onondaga
Lake as the site and focused on the salt industries impact, on
Syracuse. We utilized the idea of the water cycle within our design
because not only is it a closed looped system, but Syracuse
realized originally how profitable it was using a natural system to
produce salt. We chose the inner harbor as a starting point to
break surrounding industrial barriers, i.e. destiny USA, the water
treatment plant, and the city of Syracuse, and tried to reintegrate
them with the northern, cleaner, portion of Onondaga. By creating
an artificial shoreline using marsh grasses to improve the quality of
water and bring bugs for both local species of bats and fish to
feed off of the site could be in turn revitalized and bring people
back to the area to enjoy what Lake Onondaga has to offer. By
creating this symbiotic relationship with multiple species in a
controlled man made landscape the local population could gain
from such interventions with the additional profits of tourism. This
is a small example comparative to other ecological disasters but
begins to exemplify why animal Architecture should develop.
These ecological man made animal landscapes can positively
affect economies and people.
This pull away from industrialization utilizing the ideas I hope have
been resonating (adaptation, symbiosis, and exploitation) are not
just limited to evolving our future architectural practice but I believe
evolving humans culturally and possibly biologically. Ryan
Ludwig’s research in the field of animal architecture and its effects
in the Darwinian arena really struck me because he recognizes
the effect our buildings have on human cultures from tribes to
cities and can cultivate and respond to new cultures. This is
because every living and non living thing is subject to a “Terra
Fluxus.” Terra fluxus is a term coined by the landscape architect
James Corner who worked on the highline with Diller Scofidio and
Renfro. The meaning of his term is a ground constantly in movement. As a species we must constantly adapt to new conditions
that arise from the ecological problematique, which is essentially
part of this flux. By utilizing biomimetic sensibilities and realizing that
nature can be used as a tool or catalogue of inventions we can

IMAGE 4: Boat dock plan of hexagonal troughs and smoke stacks. Site
plan in top right corner, bottom right corner diagram of planted marsh
plants cleaning water and bringing fish back to the area.

IMAGE 5: Top left diagram of illuminated smoke stacks attracting bugs and
indigenous bats eating them. On top elevation of boat dock and bellow
section of boat dock.

IMAGE 6: physical model of boat dock

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ANIMAL EXPLOITATION: SYMBIOSIS + ADAPTATION
GABRIEL BOYAJIAN

evolve in the Darwinian arena to neither overcome nor conquer
our environment but symbiotically exploit one another. This is what
is so incredible about the field in animal architecture, because it
allows for a pre built tolerance by incorporating animals into the
design. We are trying to move past this postindustrial rut and into
a greater network by creating a culturally closed loop system
where we don’t waste. Alan Berger’s Drosscapes essay epitomizes how we should view built animal architecture.
“Cities are not static Objects but active arenas marked by
continuous energy flow and transformation of which landscape
and building and other hard parts are not permanent structure but
transitional manifestations. Like a biological organism the urbanized landscape is an open system”
-Allen Berger, Drosscapes
If we think of our buildings as moving landscapes that we and
other organisms inhabit then we can start to understand that they
can easily function as natural landscapes housing multiple
species. As designers it is paramount to understand how natural
landscapes function so we can test and build our landscapes to
function better than what nature provides. For example looking
into the animal kingdom through evolution of what helps species
survive we can see many brilliant examples. In Coral reefs conditions for life produces incredible designs in animal habitats
between predators and prey, but in some instances symbiosis.
One of my favorites is the relationship of the clown fish and the
sea anemone. The clown fish can withstand the shocking tendrils
of the sea anemone and use it as protection from predators while
keeping it clean by eating the bacteria which the sea anemone
can’t protect itself from. Using these biomimetic strategies not only
visually but functionally we can push the boundaries of current
architectural function and form just as the bird friendly masonry
does. Allowing that tolerance in design we don’t need to spray
our cities with insecticides to keep out the bugs we exploit an
animal who can will gladly help with our problem. This leads me to
my final point ecological modernization.
Dr. Maarten A. Hajer developed a policy model during the early
1980’s called ecological modernization. It is a discourse in policy
making where the moving towards environmentalism can have
economic and technological benefits at a multiplicity of scales.
This very interesting field also stems from biomimicry and sustainability and in turn animal architecture. This discourse realizes that
by exploiting our natural habitat we can save money and maintain
a balance with our natural environment. An interesting and
unrealized animal architecture project which exemplifies these
ideas is called The Last Wilderness. The project takes on the
issues of mangrove deforestation, in this case coastal mangrove
forests in Madagascar, image 7-9. The local shrimp farming
industries, which are located in these densely, populated mangrove areas keep many of these coastal economies alive, but

IMAGE 7: Site plan model highlighting how the canopy can continue to
grow organically when more coverage is needed.

IMAGE 8: Rendering of how farmers fish for shrimp.

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ANIMAL EXPLOITATION: SYMBIOSIS + ADAPTATION
GABRIEL BOYAJIAN

Mangrove wood is also in demand causing massive deforestation. The designer Jonas Braoude saw the opportunity to create
an artificial mangrove forest system that can protect the shrimp
and other fish species with a canopy and root system to provide
the fisherman with a fishing facility to capture and distribute the
shrimp easily and efficiently. This symbiotic relationship of a human
built environment for animals to inhabit specifically is indicative to
how animal architecture houses animals and humans, utilizes the
biomimetic paradigm of learning from nature to create architecture, but also uses Dr. Hajer’s ideals of Ecological modernization.
Ecological modernization validates animal architecture as a
practical and efficient method of design, and doesn’t carry the
“treehugger” sensibility or similar marketing gimmicks. Projects like
these are very effective in increasing credibility for animal architecture because in our free market global economy efficiency and
saving money is key, and if it comes bundled with a sustainable
sticker all the more reason for large companies want to embrace
animal architecture.
Now we are left with the question what are the possible future
implications animal architecture can have on our landscapes? The
most important result is that new typologies of vernacular architecture can form by utilizing animal habits as an extra source for
design intentions. Creating and extrapolating relationships both
aesthetically and functionally the way we design will always be
geared to not only what works the best, but what has the capability to evolve our specie and other species symbiotically.
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